


Searing the Land

by Clone



Category: Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Genre: Dragons, Evil, Evil Plans, Fairies, Gen, Time Skips, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:30:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2801309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clone/pseuds/Clone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maleficent faces a new threat to her powers. She decides to take care of it in her own way</p>
            </blockquote>





	Searing the Land

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RobberBaroness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta, Finch

Maleficent woke with a sense of unease; something was changing in her realm. She pushed the feeling aside, but it returned, more forcefully, as the day passed. This was not the tingle she felt when some huntsman found a magical artifact in the woods, or when one of those simpering good fairies did some small good deed and undermined all the obedient fear the tried to instill.

No, this was the feeling that a horrible, inexorable, change was coming to the land.

Unsurprisingly, Maleficent did not like change that she herself didn't cause.

She accepted a goblet from her server and then kicked him when he didn't leave fast enough. A guard near the door was next to suffer her wrath, but after lashing out at her minions all day, it had lost its appeal. Maleficent retreated to her workroom and began to work her magic. She threw items into a medium-sized cauldron as she muttered to herself.

"Can't be the cobbler's son, I took care of him already. Drop of viper tears. I cursed Hubert's wife sterile after her little brat was born unannounced. Jackal teeth. Hmmm... maybe one more. And the fairy trio has been lying low since I obliterated their sister Peaseblossom. Willow knot. What could this be?!"

Finally the potion turned a sickly black color and began to roil. Maleficent pulled out the final ingredient - one of her own scales - and dropped it into the cauldron. The potion immediately billowed into a huge black cloud.

Within the cloud, Maleficent could make out images, flickering and ghosting through the fumes. A hint of blonde hair, a flash of red lips. A royally-draped cradle, a baby's pudgy hand.

Furious, Maleficent swept her hand through the smoke, dispersing it. If a baby was being born to a royal family, this could ruin everything! Hubert's wife couldn't have another, so this must be from Stefan. If she and the brat - what was his name - were wedded and united the kingdoms, it would greatly weaken her reign.

Why hadn't she cursed Stefan's wife when she had a chance? Just because she had thought the woman to old to bear a healthy child was no reason so be lenient! And now, if she was really pregnant, then it was too late! Killing the child herself would severely compromise her powers.

Maleficent growled and kicked over the cauldron, spilling the useless remnants across the floor. She hated that her powers had limits, hated that she had to rely on checks and balances instead of just smiting everyone in the land whenever they annoyed her.

Of course, if they were all dead, then there would be no one to provide food to her castle, but these were the kinds of little details that annoyed Maleficent the most at times like these. She wanted to just storm into the palace, kill the Queen, and be done with it, but if she acted without at least a hint of justification, she shuddered to think of the consequences.

No, she would need a reason to attack the coming child, and she would find one, one way or the other.

\---

Maleficent growled and paced the small platform atop her lookout tower. Her spell had been perfect, crafted from the most toxic and potent magics that hell contained. Three simple fairies should not have been able to weaken it!

And then, on top of their interference with -- well, with her interference in the Christening -- they had to go and steal the little princess out from under the eyes of her faithful familiar. She made a mental note to punish Diablo for his inattention later. In the meantime, she had to find that child!

She cast out spell upon spell, combing the kingdom for the fairies and the princess. She had no doubt they would be together, the four of them, and she intended to find them.

Those fairies would regret meddling in her plans for the final time, Maleficent vowed.

\---

As yet another scout returned to report no sign of the baby or the fairy trio, Maleficent resisted the urge to rub her eyes. A painful ache of rage and desperation was building behind her eyes and she wanted nothing more than to transform here and now and flambe every single one of her incompetent minions. However, as satisfying as that would be, she knew it wouldn't help her find the girl. Sending out living minions was far less taxing than sending out spectral ones, and finding this girl was more important than anything else.

Maleficent had traded favors with some powerful forces of the darkness in order to rule this land, and those favors came with a price. She simply couldn't allow for the uniting of Stefan's and Hubert's kingdoms.

"Enough!" She bellowed, her alternate form adding a hint of power to her yell. Her minions scattered with squeals and panicked cries. Normally this would have amused her, but today nothing was amusing. In her loudest, most powerful roar, she demanded "Find me that baby!"

\---

The trio fluttered around the idiotic boy, and Maleficent decided she was done playing by the rules of the fairies. She had been waiting for this moment for over fifteen years, and she was going to prevent this kiss, no matter what.

In seconds, Maleficent felt her body changing, shrinking in places and growing in others - mostly growing. She felt the heat of her rage building into actual, raw, flaming heat within her gut. The power of her magic and her anger mingled, kindling the fire in her scaly belly.

As the world shrank away from her and the pesky fairies faded to insignificant little pinpoints of light, Maleficent felt whole for the first time in years -- over a decade. Her power surged, and she had to resist the urge to shoot out bursts of magic in sheer glee. Why she could fly high into the sky and scorch the earth if she wanted. She could sear every living thing beneath her in flame and agony and no living being could stop her hellish flame.

She wanted to feel the heat of those greenish-yellow flames on the _outside_ as well as the inside, warming her scales as well as her soul. She wanted everything and everyone to burn.

Any annoying prick to her earthbound flesh reminded Maleficent that she was in the middle of a battle - pitiful as her opponents were. She refocused on the trembling little beings, remembering sluggishly why she couldn't just take flight and burn everything. There were checks, and balances, and limits. And she had a job to finish. The girl -- the girl had to be destroyed.

With a roar, she dove at the tiny annoyances.

\---

The stupid prince's aim was true, and white hot agony lanced through Maleficent's body as the sword's magic fought her own. She snapped at him, but her reaction was slowed, sluggish, from the light magic tearing her apart. As she fell over the ledge, Maleficent wondered which limit she had broken, which check she had unbalanced, to give the light enough power to defeat her. 


End file.
